Smith Electric Vehicles has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, which according to some published reports could raise $125 million.

Based in Kansas City, Mo., the company makes zero-emission electric commercial delivery trucks, sold under the Newton name. It bought the electric vehicle division of its U.K. parent company, the Tanfield Group, earlier this year.

Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, FedEx and Staples are among the customers for the trucks, but it's still a niche market. The company sold 320 vehicles this fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. The filing says it has a backlog of 120 vehicles and has pre-sold 540 vehicles, which it will produce through July 2012.

Smith says it has customer interest for another 2,220 vehicles, which it will produce between 2012 and 2015.

The company also plans to open a $5 million factory in the South Bronx, according to the New York Daily News. The city has approved $1.7 million in tax incentives that will help the company renovate a 90,000-square-foot warehouse in Port Morris.

The company also recently unveiled an all-electric school bus in conjunction with Trans Tech Bus.

For the first six months of this calendar year, Smith generated $37.60 million in revenue. That was up from the $15.82 million in revenue it generated for the previous period in 2010, but the company still posted a net loss of $21.28 million, more than the $9.52 million the company lost the year before.

The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined. UBS Investment Bank and BofA Merrill Lynch are acting as the joint book-running managers for the offering.